Hussey & Taylor’s California Minstrels

     “This minstrel company was organized in San Francisco in the year 1850.”

     “The company has produced, on its debut, the most favorable impression.”

Gives cast.

     “The first part was only fair, neither the instrumental music, the ballad singing, nor the wit of the ‘enders’ being brilliant or original.  Mr. Hussey is a clever performer in the olio, but is not a good end man.  Purdy is one of the best and most laughable end men that puts on burnt cork, and was the life and redeeming one of the first part. Mr. Leslie would be a better ballad singer if he was not so affected.  Walter Fields is by no means possessed of a good voice to entitle him to the position he holds. Shuttuck [sic] is, in some of his songs, pretty good.  Childs and Carroll understand the clog dancing biz thoroughly. Mr. Taylor is a better performer in general business than he is as interlocutor; he seemed afraid to let his auditors hear one half he said.  Taken altogether, the performance was not what it should be for a Broadway audience.  The fact is, the managers, in opening at Hope Chapel, selected one of the most unpopular places on Broadway.  We cannot call to mind any show that has appeared there (and there have been hundreds) during the past three years, that has ever made a dollar.  Citizens seem to have a dread of it, and it takes extraordinary attraction to get one good house.”